Community Resilience

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

The impacts of disasters on a community are not necessarily determined by the scale of a disaster but are significantly influenced by the preparedness of the community. Community resilience is the capacity of groups to withstand, recover from, and respond positively to crisis or adversity. Community resilience is often described as having three properties: resistance, recovery and creativity. Resistance – the degree of disruption that can be accommodated without the community undergoing long-­?term change. A highly resilient community can withstand considerable disruption before undergoing long-­?term change. Recovery – the community’s ability to pull through or bounce back to its pre-­?disaster state. A highly resilient community returns to its pre-­?disaster state, or moves beyond that, quicker than a less resilient community. Creativity – the community’s ability to build on lessons of a crisis or disaster, to gain an improved level of functioning and increased levels of resilience. A highly resilient community will adapt to its new circumstances and learn from the disaster experience. This online course is designed to assist graduate students working in the area of social work, community development, and public health to understand and apply concepts of resilience to building the capacity of communities to successfully weather disasters whether naturally occurring or manmade. How do planners measure, foster, organize, evaluate and implement the tools, processes and programs that seek to foster resiliency in urban communities? Particular attention will be paid to the role of community-­?level initiatives aimed at educating graduate students to think critically at how a community can prepare for, cope with, and recover from the adverse social, health and community impacts of disasters through the interrelated domains of prevention, preparedness, response and recovery with the end goal of achieving resilience. Emphasis will also be on identifying federal, state, local, private sector and non-­?governmental agency plans to enhance community resilience for health security threats and describe options for building community resilience.